Hogmany!

::Hello everyone::

I hope Christmas was fantastic for you all! The TB's Christmas was not our usual celebratory afair this year but I will not allow that kind of stuff on my blog!! This is my cheerful happy place :o)

The Littlies had a ball and got pressies they were not expecting and my lovely Mr TB is just the best and a total trooper.

this view was clear when I started taking photos! Where did the kids go????

Well it's the last day of 2010 and it got me thinking about the year that has passed. Unfortunately the main things that came to mind were so negative I just want 2010 to end BUT then I started to try and change my mindset and think of all the positives of 2010 to balance this out!!!!

So 2010 ........................

The year I learned to crochet!!! I taught myself and this is my first project



Crochet has opened an amazing and exciting new chapter in my life. I have met so many fantastic people through it. Which takes me to my next thing.

::Attic 24 :: Lucy's Blog is the first blog I had ever read and it has brought such joy to my life!! Thank you Lucy. I spread the word to my LYS which I found hunting for Lucy colours. This intoduced me to the lovely lovely LYS owner Lucy who cheers me up sooooo much every time I see her, because of that conversation she now stocks the Stylecraft Attic 24colour pack!

Crochet Club! I started going to crochet club at my LYS and it has introduced me to lots of lovely new friends especially Lucy and Issy and gives me 2hours of mind wandering bliss in a very busy life.

::RAVELRY:: Oh the joy the joy Ravelry has brought me. So many amazingly talented people and they are so friendly and helpful. JOY!!! Deep JOY!!!! Sharing all your amazing projects and all those patterns at your finger tips. Like this one

The Fantasy Flower Bag the super talented Morrewen

 (and changed slightly by me!)

 

I taught my friends to crochet. It's been a great experience to share and brought us all even closer together. I feel truly blessed to have them in my life. I hope they know how much they mean to me.

My darling biggest Littlie started secondary school and is doing amazingly well! She has met so many lovely friends and it has brought her out her shell so much.

I started Blogging! It has been such a positive step to write and your comments make it all worth while. Thank you all my followers for continuing to read my blog. I hope it's interesting on some level. I take it that's the case because you continue to follow me.

I have so many reasons to be thankful for the last year it would be A MASSIVE post if I carried on so I will stop there but a HUGE HUGE Thank you to you all! I had no idea there were so many lovely people out there and you really are amazing. So here's to getting to know you all better in

2011.

HAPPY HOGMANY.

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!!  Nollaig Chridheil agus Bliadhna Mhath Ur!!!!

An lang mae yir lum reek. xxxxxx

Snowy Saturday.

It's Saturday, that means it's new blog post day and not to metion that it is 18th December which is International answer the phone like Buddy The Elf day!!!! So today when the phone rings the person on the other end will hear "Buddy The Elf What's your favourite colour?" It also means if some unsuspecting tele-sales person rings the littlies will fight to answer the phone and I suspect the person making the call won't stay on the line!

I finished work on Thursday for Christmas. Yay! No work until 4 January 2011. Lots of lovely time with my babies. Mr TB and I went out for his works Christmas lunch yesterday to the most beautiful place. It was at one of the stunning luxury hotels his boss owns (it is a bit if a hobby of his. oh to have that kinda money). We had a beautiful meal while the littlies were entertained by my friend N who came up to babysit and I will return the favour next week with her littlie while she goes to work. During that time she made this with them!

It is amazingly beautiful and made out of the humble A4 drawing paper. Increadible! This is the instructions I found when I googled the image. The photo is a little bright because today the TB cottage looks like this..............

and the view from the window

I was going to go to my LYS today and drop off a little pressie for Lucy and the lovely Issy but my lane looked like this at 9.00am..................

While that is ok I can't be bothered to defrost my Landy

And with more snow forecast today it can change very quickly! So I am closing the cottage door ......................

and I am going to wrap pressies, bake, and decorate the house a little more and maybe a bit of sledging with the littlies while we hope Mr TB gets up North safely today and safely home tomorrow.

Stay warm out there and have a lovely weekend from all of us in the cosy TB cottage. xxxxx

Oh and P.S. I have edited previous post Feeling Festive to include photos of the finished living room decs and Biggest Littlies jewellery from her party. x

Feeling Festive. Edited to add more pictures

How are you all? Thank you so very very much for all the lovely comments on my last post. You have no idea how much they helped me through what has turned out to be a particularly horrendous week. In fact I don't ever remember things feeling quite so bad. BUT hey life goes on and(that's not what I want my blog to be about) we have had cause to be cheerful too! Middle Littlie and Smallest Littlie had to go into hospital on Tuesday for food challenges. Smallest Littlie is now been given the all clear to eat nuts!!!! That includes peanuts but strangely not cashews?! Middle Littlie couldn't have hers done unfortunately because her oxygen sats were too low because of her asthma but she got another appointment for January so that's not too bad. 

I had enough of feeling sorry for myself so we went to collect our tree and the Littlies set to work their Christmas magic! It was a little bottom heavy so I did a little redistribution after bedtime and this is the result...........

It always makes you feel more Christmasy once the tree is in situ, doesn't it? My favourite bit maybe more than even the tree is the fireplace

It isn't quite finished yet but I love doing this bit and do it over a few days adding bit and bobs in so it is so full and glowing (well it will be when I get the damn fairylights working!) and excuse the oven tray under the woodburner but we scoffed some chestnuts while we worked and they were gooood!!!
 Myself and the Littlies will go cut the holly and ivy for the banister on the stairs tomorrow after school and I can put up the gorgeous holly berry lights and then decorate the dinning room.

I had only a little bit of time to work on it today as it was Biggest Littlies 12th Birthday. I can't believe she is 12! She is such a lovely young lady. She had a lovely jewellery party with her friends. They made a gorgeous necklace each and a spiral bracelet too which I will edit this post tomorrow and add some photos of the creations.

I hope you all had a lovely weekend and you are all feeling a little festive too and for those of you who don't celebrate Christmas I hope you are not too sick of everyone going on about it yet!

Sending you all happy thoughts for the week ahead. xxxxxxxxx
Ok so as I promised this is what Biggest Littlie made at her party....

 I think they look fantastic! I wish I could do that when I was 12!!!!!!

And at last the living room decs are done! I have stopped tweeking at the fire place and it now looks festive

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas! :o)

Santa's Little Elf

Hello everyone. How are you all? Anyone still snowed in? We have been in a tiny pocket of the country that didn't get much snow at all. We got about 2cm but LOTS of ice which has made my journeys to work interesting, traveling sideways down our country lane when you started out pointing forwards!

 I am sorry I haven't written a proper post for a while but I have been a busy girl working an enormous amount of hours producing my new brochure for work and organising our big Christmas events which this year included, visit from Santa, Children's pottery painting day, buffet for 90 people, a Swing Band and so on, but also trying to get some Christmas presents ready for family and friends.

So you lovely people, shall I show you what I have been up to?

I went to my friends studio to do some glass fusing and made some decorations for the Christmas tree.

I love how different they are when they come out of the kiln, all smooth and tactile.

Don't they like boiled sweeties?

I also did some copper foiling to make some more stars for the window............

..................and some mirrored tea-light holders for presents. They twinkle so nicely when you light the candles, it shows the jewel like colours so beautifully.

Candle light and stained glass is an amazing combination.

And so to the softer side of my life.......... I have been crocheting my socks off over the last couple of weeks (I should be knitting those scrummy socks for my niece really, but I needed some instant wooly gratification.) Crochet is sooooo much quicker than knitting. I get such a kick out of making something in an evening rather than it taking weeks. I have mostly been making presents but I have had to make some other bits and bobs for myself too as it has been flippin brass monkeys outside!

A Queen Anne scarf for my Mum using the yarn I bought ages ago. I used this pattern from Ravelry it was written by a very clever guy and is available for free. It took one and half evenings to make and really shows the beauty of the colours in the yarn. I liked it so much I made this one for me ......

It's such a therapeutic pattern to do and is one of the most enjoyable patterns I have every used.

I felt I was neglecting my niece's socks (which made me feel like a bad Auntie) but I wasn't ready to start up on them again, so I made her another Martha Cowl for Christmas. This is another freebie Ravelry pattern that is so quick and easy to do.

 This is the pattern I used for her birthday in this post and according to my sister she has been wearing it ever since. I think she may appreciate a different colour and texture. I wish I had taken a photo of the yarn before I made it. I was very tweedie hence the name Sidar Tweedie!!! Clue is in the title. It has a gorgeous texture and a really cosy feel. The do a really lush blue one

 which I think I may have to treat myself to. I am such a pain when I start making gifts, they really bring out a selfish side I didn't know I had! I just don't want to give things away I want to keep them for me ....... mine I tell you ...... mine ....... mine. I come over all Gollam. My precious! Theives and Bagginses. I may have just taken that a little too far but you get the idea. 

To satisfy the Smeegle side of my personality I made myself a hat last night.

Oh boy oh boy it's cosy! I LOVE IT. It's Stylecraft Aran in Blue Haze which is navy but has a lovely fushia tone to it. Yes you guessed it, it was another Ravelry freebie pattern. I had to alter the pattern slightly by putting in another 3 rows one puff stitch row and one double crochet row and one more decrease row to get the right amount of slouch to the back. The puff stitches are great and give a lovely effect.

 I'll show you in a Wayne's World type extreme close up.......

Aren't the pufftastic???? Sorry about all the shadows in the photos today the light is so wrong for photos indoors.

This afternoon Mr TB is working and the littlies want to play on the Wii so I think I am going to try making a Lacey Infinity Scarf by Beth Attwood this pattern isn't a freebie but it cost $2.00 so hey I call that a bargain! I am making it to match my new hat. I will show you the result in my next post.

Whatever you are all doing I hope you enjoy the rest of your weekend. xxxxxx

Bbbbbrrrrrrrrrr!

Hello all you people out there. I hope you are all staying warm (all you UK peeps). It hasn't reached above zero for a few days and was a toasty -5 when I went to work this morning! Our little pocket of snow free time will be over tonight with snow on the forecast. So if I can't get to work tomorrow it'll be a good excuse for all day hooky, sledging and snowman time so win win if you ask me. This is earlier this years snowlady.......................

Tatania Queen of the Faries. Oberon was last year so will have to come up with another idea for the next opportunity.

I have been so busy hooking away, making Christmas pressies which I hope to post about tomorrow so until then I will say bye bye. xxxxxx

I got a Beautiful Blogger Award!

Wow what a lovely surprise! Theresa Has given me a Beautiful Blogger Award. I am thrilled. As you all know I am new to this blogging milarky so it's lovely to know you are all enjoying it and I am getting something right. So now I believe I have to write 10 facts about me...............................................

• I LOVE live music. I go to see Metallica every chance I get and sulked like a child when Mr TB was given a Meet n Greet ticket when we went to the O2 in London to see them. Notice it was ticket and not tickets!!!!!! He would even take me as his "thing to be signed" so I had to sit on my own 'til he joined me and hear how amazing it was. Gggrrrrrrr!

• I have a phobia of mashed potato.

• When I was little I used to think the fluffy bits of Dandelion heads were Fairies.

• I once went to a ball at Buckingham Palace.

• I have lived in three different countries. I only lived in one house as a child which is the house my parents still live in but since being married I have moved 6 times but don't ever want to move again, even though I REALLY miss Scotland!

• I married my best friend. Mr TB and I were best friends for a very long time before we became a couple. In fact even before that  I disliked him intensely the first time I met him but as The Fast Show character Rowley Birkin would say he was very very very drunk!

• I am a fully qualified nursery teacher (even though that is not my job now)

• I love Geocaching . I love walking in the country and geocaching has introduced us to places we would never have found otherwise.

• I love cooking and baking for my family and friends. My Granny taught me to cook and knit and sew when I was a little girl. She was amazing, she would plan a meal for her and my Grandpa then all their children and Grandchildren would turn up and she would still make enough to round us all!

• oooooooooooohhhh look number 10 ......................okay ................ mmmmmmmmmmmm ................... I don't like raisins!!!!

There we go 10 things! I will do a post in a couple of days with photos from the stained glass workshop I went yesterday. I will just have to wait for the decorations to come out the kiln.



 So now to nominate.....................

• The Quince Tree
• Craft Valley
• Happy Elastic
• Hello Operator
• A Hook and a Hoot
• Swedish House
• Apricot Corner
• Needles Pins and Baking Tins

Wordless Wednesday

Logging Blogging and Third Time Lucky! (fetch a cuppa it's a long one)

Happy Saturday to you all. This is my third attempt at posting this and I am getting upset with the fact I haven't been able to finish before the internet goes all weird and my post has disappeared into the ether!!!!

It has been a cold damp and very windy week in The Cotswolds. The trees are skeletal with all but a few leaves left on their limbs. The sky has been that shade of grey better known as Bleugh. What to do to cheer the souls of The TB's? Aha light the woodburner! There is something about the fire burning in the harth that warms you inside and out and feeds your soul. Off I go outside to the wood shed but only to find all that's there is a few sticks and wood shavings. PANTS! Even Ray Mears couldn't have made a fire out of that poor effort. Nothing else for it. Round up the lumberjacks and off we go up to the barn, armed with hot chocolate, axes and hard work to do. The littlies all have their jobs when we go logging, Little one finds chopable sizes, Middle one stacks and loads them in the Landy, Big'un chops and loads, while me and Mr TB split logs until we are knackered. So we are nearly done when Littliest shouts out "Mummy! Mummy! Look what I found! You're going to love it." He scrambled over the logs with his treasure in his little gloved hands and brought me this.................

A heart shaped log! He knows me so well. I love it. I can't bring myself to chop it or burn it so it will remain on the fire place to make me smile. A lovely little nature treasure.

Ok so Crafting! I have had a productive week. I went to crochet club on Wednesday with C. She is such a good friend she calms me down and listens to my rants (which I have been doing a lot of lately) and when I have spent time with her I always feel better. C hadn't been before but we had a lovely morning hooking away. When it was done we stayed behind because ...... do you remember the lovely sock yarn I bought to make socks for my lovely niece for Christmas? This one .......

Well when I bought it I also bought a circular needle and was determind to teach myself this toe-up two socks at a time thingy. Oh boy oh boy was it biting off more than I could chew! But the yarn was there, looking at me, begging me to cast on and reveal her lovely stripeyness, saucy minx (sorry carried away there!) I was tempted to start on the double pointers but I spoke to L at my LYS and she said to bring it with me and she would show me how to manage the cicular beast. So I stayed behind and she should me some freaky moves that she called casting on and off I went on the toe increases. I came home rather proud of myself and carried on a little then the kids needed feeding. I mean feeding, for goodness sake couldn't they see I was knitting two socks at once???? Aparantly not! When I picked up the needle again I couldn't figure it out. It looked like it had been turned inside out and upside down and round and round by a rabid dog! So against my better judgment I had to frog it. So once the little treasures were in bed I went on YouTube and found a tutorial to cast back on magic loop stylie and off I went again. I am now finished the toe increases and working on the main foot. So proud of myself. Want to see?

I am loving them! Thanks L!

And so to Thursday.............

I went to my Stained Glass Class on Thursday. I have had it in my head for a while I wanted to use up some of the glass I already have form my previous larger projects and being a bear of very little brain it got me to thunking..........so I thunk.........and thunk..... and thunk a little more and I thunk of Christmas. After some geometric work and careful measuring and drawing I came up with an eight pointed star design for a tree topper. Out came the tools! I transfered the design to the glass, I cut, grozed, copper foiled and soldered and this is the result............

Now I just have to work out a cunning device to attach it to the tree! I am thinking a clip of some description but I will have to keep the grey matter ticking over on it.

I am now going to knit a little more now in front of the fire with a glass of wine so bye bye for now.

Slàinte maith, h-uile latha, na chi 'snach fhaic! xxxxxxx

We Shall Remember Them.

They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old: Age shall not weary
them, nor the years condemn. At the going down of the sun and in themorning, We will remember them.

 

Our thoughts are with the family and friends of those who have passed away and to our current serving friends and family, may they come back to us safe and sound.

15 Years Ago

15years ago today I married the lovely Mr TB. He was my best friend for such a long time before we got together. I should have seen the signs when I hated all his girlfriends and he hated my boyfriends! Anyway some how or other we managed to tell each other how we felt and give it a go and hey what do you know it worked out just grand. We have been through such a lot together and such a lot to be together, but the last year has been a major roller coaster. It hasn't been our relationship, that has been firmer than ever, but there have been pressures on us that no family should have to endure .
 Anyway I couldn't be anymore in love than I am right now.
Mr TB was away last night and he had entrusted biggest littlie to give me my card this morning, while I had stashed his card in his holdall before he left on Tuesday. When biggest littlie brought it to me this morning I was expexting a nice card (he always chooses so well), but to my surprise there was also a gorgeous little bag ............

we don't give each other pressies for anniversaries as a rule so this was an unexpected and delightful surprise. So what's inside? ............................

..................the most lovely necklace and bracelet in purples and greens. Just my colours.

I was so thrilled and over the moon. I have worn it all day.

 So Mr TB you old smoothy!

I hope you make it home tonight and just to let you know you make my heart skip faster than anyone ever could

(even James Hetfield!) I love you more than words can say.

 Happy Anniversary! xxxxx

The TB Shreks

We had a lovely time at the party last night and we won the Fancy Dress Competition for best female and best male! Bottle of wine each..........Result! So here we go time to post the piccis........................

Shrek and Fiona TB style

The green was far nicer than on the photos but it was a giggle. I will be spending the next 4 days getting body paint out of places I didn't think I'd painted!!!!

Well Carve My Pumpkins! It's Halloween (nearly)

Happy Weekend to you all! Have you had a good week? I am glad it's the weekend! Mr TB has been away all week and we haven't been able to spend any time together, but tonight, we are going out!!! Woo-hoo! We are going to a big fancy dress 50th Birthday Party. What are we going as? I don't know of I should tell you or just show you later. But in true TB family tradition the costumes are a good tongue in cheek effort. I will post photos (hopefully before we go out) as soon as I can. So it's pumkin carving today with the littlies. I love doing this with them. I will show you the ones we have done already ...............

Tichty small!

Medium                                   and two littlies to carry it Humungus!

More to do today.........................................................

I have been working my hook feverishly this week to get some crochet finished so I can get some Chritmas pressies made. Want to see? ok then........

I had a load of Vintage Granny Flower Sqaures in the bottom of yarn bag so I made this, but what to back it with? So I made a big granny square but the cushion is rectangular?! So I ran up a couple more plain square and this is what I came up with........

I'm pleased with it!

Then Biggest Littlie wanted a pair of wrist warmers so frantic hooky time later and four froggings I had these......

I used this is the pattern It may be just me but it wasn't the most straight forward pattern I have ever used. It was possibley the most ffffffff....... blooming frustrating one I have used.
I invented new swear words making them ............but I kept on plugging away at it and it now seems pretty straight forward stranglely. The written pattern is incomplete and I had never used a diagram pattern before. So quick learning curve!!!!!!!

and now middle littlie wants some too but rainbow ones! So off I go again and this is one of hers .......

                                               they are so bright and jolly ...............so her!
So yes I was side tracked yet again and seduced my yummy yarny goodness and new patterns.

So feeling like I had achieved something I popped to LYS Along Came Polly .......................

did I buy anything?  Who me? As if! (As if I could resist) Does a bear.....................?  Yes of course I did!!!!!

The scrummy sock yarn on the left will be socks (clue is in the name sock yarn) and the single ply coral one on the left will be a twirly scarf for Mum. Can't wait to start!

 But first I have to go shopping! My microwave stopped waving during the week and me and Mr TB will be married 15years on Thursday so I think he needs a wee Thank you for being my DH and Best Buddy pressie!

So until later............. Toodles! Have a great day. xxxxxxxxxxx